Diablo II: Resurrected model tools

Reads Diablo II: Resurrected's .model files and exports them to glTF — skinned and animated, not just a posed mesh — and to .m3 for the StarCraft II editor.

The .m3 exporter is the part nothing else does. It is the same one that ships in D3ModelViewer, re-typed against a game-neutral scene model: MD34 sections, named sequences with automatic SC2 sequence-name mapping, the alpha-mask cutout layer, and physics.

Early days. This is a command-line tool and a library; the viewer application comes later. See the roadmap for what is built, what is next, and why.

What works today

Read .model / .gr2	Granny container, type tree, meshes, skeletons, vertex layouts, bone bindings
Assemble pieces	Pick heads/torsos/legs by name and combine several models onto one skeleton
Read .glb / .gltf	Anything Noesis or a DCC tool exports — including skeletons and animation clips
Write .glb / .gltf	Skinned, animated, with a correct bind pose
Write .m3	StarCraft II, with sequences named from Diablo II's own animation modes
Read animations	Clips, track groups and transform tracks; 6 of Granny's 21 curve encodings
Inspect and scan	Answer, from a real install, the questions the roadmap depends on

Not yet: fifteen of Granny's quantised curve encodings, .texture decoding, CASC reading, the viewer UI. Run d2rmv curves to see how much of your install that affects; take the Noesis route for anything it cannot decode — see below.

Install

Needs the .NET 8 SDK or newer.

dotnet build -c Release

The tool is src/D2RModelViewer.Cli/bin/Release/net8.0/d2rmv.

Use it

Point it at your own Diablo II: Resurrected install, extracted to loose files (with D2RExtractor or CascView).

# What does this file actually contain?
d2rmv inspect  Data/hd/monsters/skeleton/skeleton.model
d2rmv info     Data/hd/monsters/skeleton/skeleton.model

# What does the whole install use? Versions, compression codecs, failures, bone counts.
d2rmv scan     "C:/Diablo II Resurrected"

# Which animation curve encodings does it use, and how much would each one buy?
d2rmv curves   "C:/Diablo II Resurrected"

# Export
d2rmv gltf     skeleton.model -o skeleton.glb
d2rmv m3       skeleton.model -o skeleton.m3 --scale 0.02

Assembling a character from its pieces

Diablo II builds a character out of named component pieces — head, torso, legs, arms, hands, shield — and Resurrected's HD art keeps that structure. So a character is usually several meshes, often across several .model files, and exporting one alone gives you a floating head.

d2rmv parts lists what you have:

$ d2rmv parts barb_HD.model barb_TR.model barb_LG.model barb_SH.model
4 piece(s) across 4 file(s), 5 bones on the merged skeleton
  #   slot        piece                            verts    tris  source
  1   head        head_mesh                            4       2  barb_HD.model
  2   torso       chest_mesh                           4       2  barb_TR.model
  3   legs        leg_mesh                             4       2  barb_LG.model
  4   shield      shield_mesh                          4       2  barb_SH.model

Then pass the files you want to gltf or m3 and they are merged onto one skeleton — bones are unified by name, and each piece's vertex weights are remapped onto the result:

d2rmv m3 barb_*.model -o barbarian.m3 --exclude shield --scale 0.02
d2rmv gltf barb_*.model -o bust.glb --parts head,torso

--parts and --exclude match a piece by:

	Example
number, as listed by parts	--parts 1,3
exact mesh name	--parts head_mesh
glob	--parts "chest*"
Diablo II component code	--parts HD,TR,LG
slot name	--parts head,torso,legs,arms,hands,shield,weapon
the file it came from	--parts barb_HD

Each piece stays a separately named mesh in the export, so it is still a distinct object in Blender and still identifiable if you re-import it. If two pieces disagree about a shared bone — one puts the spine somewhere else — the export says so rather than quietly picking one.

The Noesis route, for animations we cannot decode yet

Granny has 21 animation curve encodings and this reads six of them; the rest quantise their data in ways that need confirming against real files before they can be implemented safely (see GR2-FORMAT.md). d2rmv curves reports what your install uses.

Where a clip will not decode, Noesis already reads it, so let Noesis do the reading:

# In Noesis: export the .model to .gltf/.glb with its animations.
d2rmv m3 skeleton.glb -o skeleton.m3 --scale 0.02

d2rmv maps each clip onto a StarCraft II sequence name using Diablo II's own animation modes — NU becomes Stand, WL becomes Walk, A1 becomes Attack, DT becomes Death, and so on — so the sequences arrive in the SC2 editor already named the way the editor expects.

Scale

--scale 0.02 is the D3 tool's default and a reasonable starting point for StarCraft II character heights. d2rmv info prints the model's declared units per metre, which Granny records, so the right number is a division rather than a guess.

Requirements and legal

This reads your own installed copy of Diablo II: Resurrected. It ships no game assets and cannot download any. Do not redistribute exported assets.

Granny is RAD Game Tools / Epic middleware. This project contains a clean-room managed reader and does not use or redistribute granny2.dll.

Diablo and StarCraft are trademarks of Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. This project is not affiliated with or endorsed by Blizzard.

License

MIT — see LICENSE. Covers this project's code only, not any game content.